I've been using the same 320GB seagate 7200.10 for a number of years now as my primary HDD (OS/programs/games/music) and I think it's finally time to upgrade to a faster boot drive. I'm wondering what the most economical way of doing this would be. I'm leaning towards getting an SSD but it would have to be around 100GB (possibly the OCZ Vertex 96GB) so I could keep the OS and most programs on it still.

Is that a good SSD to go with? Would I notice a significant improvement in boot and load times? The large data read/write speed isn't as much a concern to me as boot and load times. Is there a better SSD option for around $200? I'm pretty new to SSD technology I'm just getting sick of the slowness of my current drive.

I did read through a few posts before but just went back and read this one (New SSD drives) which I had initially skipped over and seems to have some good info.

The Intel G2 or OCZ Vertex 1 seems to be a good place to start my only concern now is whether to get ~80GB and limit what I put on it to OS + a few games or get ~128GB and put OS + SC2 + steam library + other everyday applications (office, firefox, itunes, etc.)

I'm inclined to get the Vertex over the Intel for the extra space if they are roughly equivalent speeds since it would mean less worry about fitting programs. I would also spend the extra money on the Kingston if it's worth it. I've read that the V+ series is pretty good but the regular V series is slower in random read/write compared to the OCZ. Would it be noticably slower though? I'll have to look at some more benchmarks when I get home later.

As for the question whether or not to upgrade to ssd, its really up to you. If you have the disposable income and have enough for your other upgrades too, by all means, get an ssd. I have an X25 80GB which I recently bought. As all the reviews and other people have said, boot up and shutdown times are halved and programs open instantaneously. However, you should ask yourself how often you do this. With my normal usage scenario, I usually put my computer in standy so boot up times don't matter much to me. I also run pretty much the same programs every day and have them left open (Word, Firefox, MSN, media players, utorrent) so the faster program start up times dont affect them either. I found game loading times don't decrease much either. All in all, Tl;dr is that an ssd is great but you need to look at your own computer habits and see if it would actually help you out. To me though, it wasn't a worthy upgrade and was certainly not worth the $150 I spent

I too would suggest Sandforce based drives if you can afford it. And assuming that you're running Windows 7 and have an Intel chipset.

If not, then the original Vertex will work out better for you as it has better internal maintenance.

However, my Vertex 2 120GB ran me $300, so it's a bit out of your budget. 60GB is all that fits in $200. And honestly, that 96GB drive scares me a little since it's a rather "odd" size. I'd take a guess and say they're faulty 120GB drives.

Thanks for the info so far guys. I read a bit more about the Kingston and I agree the V series is not worth it. I'm currently leaning towards to Vertex 1 as I liked the size (even though it's sort of a weird size). I can't find any explanation for the size other than this speculation "it might be a really really over provisioned 128GB SSD, odd configuration of NAND, or this is not using all 8 channels."

I did some measuring and assuming a fresh Windows 7 install (20GB) plus a few games (30GB) and a few apps (5GB) I'm coming in under 60GB but should probably get at least 80GB to be safe. I could safely get the Intel G2 which according to some reviews has between 2-4x the random 4k read/write speed. That being said, is 1/4 of a really small number a $50 difference? I'll keep thinking on this one. Also is this the kind of component I should get new rather than used? I'm always a little wary of buying used HDDs.

I know that you don't really have the budget for it, but I do think that you should wait until you do have the budget for a Vertex 2. I have used the 120 Vertex 2's on a couple of new builds at work and they really are just downright fast. Quite a bit faster (in my mind) than the Intel 80 or the original Vertex.

Oh and don't sell yourself short on size, remember that games just keep on getting bigger. I know I have to watch what I put on my machine and I have the 128GB Kingston V+, I just find that you have to be a little bit more aware of what goes onto your C drive.

Thanks for all the input guys. After looking at some more benchmarks I agree the Vertex 2 is probably superior enough to be worth it. The price for the 120GB has gone from ~$500 to under $300 since May of this year so I'm gonna wait it out a bit longer and get the better drive when I can afford it. At the latest by Christmas I figure it (or something better) will be within my price range.